"Rip-off" vs. "homage"

Le seul problème qui se pose avec Black Swan - mais il est de taille - est que ce film, on l'a déjà vu, en version animée, avec une jeune fille prisonnière de ses névroses et du monde-miroir de la télévision (ici, le ballet). Ca s’appelait Perfect Blue . Jamais totalement affranchi de son modèle, Black Swan s’approche dangereusement du plagiat et il y a comme un certain malaise à le découvrir quelques jours seulement après la disparition de Satoshi Kon , génie visionnaire de Perfect Blue (entre autres).

‘Black Swan’ is the latest entry in the “Women Going Crazy” genre that stretches back to films like ‘Persona’ and ‘Repulsion‘, as well as Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s famous 19th Century feminist short story ‘The Yellow Wallpaper’. Perhaps its strongest modern antecedent is Satoshi Kon’s anime film ‘Perfect Blue’, which director Aronofsky explicitly referenced in his earlier movie ‘Requiem for a Dream’. Just like ‘Perfect Blue’, ‘Black Swan’ is about an artistic performer (in that case, a pop star) who starts to lose her sense of reality when her insecurities and paranoia overtake all of her other rational thoughts. Soon, she can’t tell what’s real from what’s in her head – and, due to the way the story is told, neither can we in the audience.

Darren Aronofsky: Since I was very young, I've had a taste for the alternative. I remember as a teenager always looking for different ways of looking at things. I wasn't in the Bavarian mountains, but in South Brooklyn [and we] didn't get art film. I grew up on the mainstream films of the '70s and early '80s. It wasn't until I started university that I realized films were made in Europe as well and latched onto [art films] because finally aesthetically something clicked.

THR: Was there any one film that did that for you?

Aronofsky: "She's Gotta Have It" by Spike Lee. It was just a seminal moment; I had never seen cinema like that. [But] I didn't really know what a filmmaker was. When I got to university, I started reading a lot of dead white men and my roommate would get high every day and work on Anatomy of Film and get an A, and I was like, "Hmm, something's wrong here." So I switched over and I had a drawing class with this incredible teacher who just taught you how to look at the three-dimensional world and represent it in two dimensions on paper, and it radicalized the way I looked at the world.

What's interesting is that Black Swan is already drawing comparisons to an anime film, Perfect Blue, which Arronofsky holds the rights to (he duplicated the bath tub scene in Requiem for a Dream). Perfect Blue a similar story of a girl losing her way in pursuit of fame and her career. She begins to hallucinate another version of herself and the lines between reality and delusion become blurred.

Cantieri e polemiche, si alza il sipario: "Black Swan" accusato di plagio
Avrebbe copiato un film del defunto Satoshi Kon.

E poco importa se i cinefili hanno già aperto una polemica sul web proprio contro “Black Swan”, accusandolo di aver copiato il film d’animazione “Perfect Blue” del maestro giapponese Satoshi Kon, morto pochi giorni fa. Le affinità, in effetti ci sono, il primo si concentra su una diva del pop che deve recitare in un film una scena di stupro e comincia ad avere le allucinazioni; il secondo opta per la danza, catapulta la Portman nelle prove del "Il lago dei cigni", la costringe a dividere la scena con una seducente nuova arrivata di talento (Mila Kunis), finchè la ragazza non perderà il contatto con la realtà.

9. Paprika Se Dreamscape già proponeva un uomo che entra nei sogni degli altri nel 1984, nel 2006 Paprika (del da poco scomparso Satoshi Kon) è invece proprio un viaggio nel subconscio umano attraverso i sogni in tutto e per tutto identico, nei presupposti e non nelle finalità, a quello di Inception. Sebbene l'idea di Satoshi Kon fosse di creare un'opera immaginifica, incontrollata e delirante (tutto il contrario del rigore e del controllo massimo di Nolan), lo stesso i fan di Paprika (presente!) hanno gridato nella sala buia non appena è stato chiaro quel che faceva Di Caprio.

En esta nota, me voy a centrar en su última gran película: "Inception", y en la que yo creo que es su influencia principal: "Paprika" de Satoshi Kon. La última película hasta la fecha del desaparecido director japonés ya trataba en 2006 sobre el sueño, de tratarlo como un mundo real y de utilizarlo como escenario de la trama para conseguir que tanto los personajes de la historia como el espectador no sepan si lo que ven es un sueño o la realidad. Hay películas anteriores donde ya se utilizaba esta herramienta del sueño como una referencia habitual, como es el caso de "The Cell" del genial Tarsem Singh, sin embargo en ella no se explotaban todas las posibilidades narrativas que podría dar de sí sino que se centraba más en el plano estético y visual, algo muy característico del director indio.

(Aronofsky explicitly referenced Roman Polanski’s “Repulsion,” David Cronenberg’s “The Fly” and Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger's "The Red Shoes" as cinematic touchpoints.)

Essentially, Black Swan is Repulsion & Perfect Blue by way of Showgirls with heavy influences of Brian De Palma & Kenneth Anger thrown in for good measure. In fact, I think I could easily liken this to the work of the Kuchar Brothers as well. With a combination like that, this should play like gangbusters for the cult set. The problem is that this isn't nearly as intelligent of a mindfuck as Repulsion or Perfect Blue.

Q: Was the film Perfect Blue an inspiration for this film?

A: Not really, there are similarities between the films, but it wasn’t influenced by it. It really came out of Swan Lake the Ballet, we wanted to dramatize the ballet, that’s why it’s kind of up here and down there, because ballet is big and small in lots of ways.

I have only one thing - that I know of - in common with Darren Aronofsky; we both love Satoshi Kon’s anime psychological thriller PERFECT BLUE. Aronofsky has often spoken of his desire to remake that film in live action, and though it is not as marked as the trailer made it seem, that much better film is an obvious and heavy influence on BLACK SWAN. It is present in the central questions of the film; whether Nina’s demanding new role is driving her mad, whether she is in fact becoming that role and whether her rival Lily is real or a symptom of her psychosis. There are also several shots that echo PERFECT BLUE, most notably the first time we see Lily (or is it Nina’s reflection?), which is a direct visual quote of Kon’s film. That said, this isn’t the live action remake that Aronofsky has been pitching, rather it feels as though he’s taken PERFECT BLUE and Powell and Pressburger’s masterpiece THE RED SHOES, added a large dollop of melodrama, shoved them in a blender and hit frappe....

...It’s not so much that BLACK SWAN is an awful film; it’s just that the combination of elements didn’t work for me. I can see what Aronofsky is reaching for here, and I can see that there might be a good film in it if it were more dialled back, less operatic in tone and more concerned with the psychology of Nina. At the end of the day, rather than recommending that you see this film, I’d suggest that you log on and add THE RED SHOES and PERFECT BLUE to your netflix queue, and then have yourself a double bill. You’ll have a not dissimilar experience (outside of seeing Natalie Portman and Mila Kunis make out), but by the end you’ll have seen two masterpieces rather than one disappointment.

“Darren’s vision has brought audiences some of the most original and memorable stories and characters in recent motion picture history,” said Fox Searchlight co-presidents Steve Gilula and Nancy Utley.

The way Perfect Blue and Black Swam relate is mostly through the main characters Mima (Perfect Blue) and Natalie Portman’s character Nina (even notice the name similarity)(Black Swam). The characters are both female leads, tangled in the pop culture of the arts. Mima is a pop idol trying to turn into an actress while dealing with criticism. Nina lands the lead role of the ballet and is dealing with criticism. Both undergo immense physiological trauma stemming from their overbearing female counterparts. Mima suffers from her managers disagreements and criticism due to the fact she was a failed ex pop star. Nina suffers from her mother who at one time was a famous ballerina. Mima (Perfect Blue) begins to hallucinate, haunted by images of stress, sexuality, fame as does Nina in Black Swam. I could go on and on about how these movies are similar -Hope this helped

ところでパーフェクトブルー、ブラックスワンが主人公美馬（パーフェクトブルー）とナタリーポートマンの文字ニーナ（名前も類似性を注目してください）（ブラックスワン）を介してほとんどです。文字のポップカルチャーに巻き込ま両方の女性のリードであり、関連する芸術。美馬は批判に対応しながら女優に変わるしようとしているアイドル歌手です。ニーナ土地バレエのリードの役割と批判を扱っている。どちらもその横柄な女性の対応に起因する巨大な生理的外傷を受けています。美馬は彼女のマネージャーに苦しんでいる意見や批判、彼女は失敗した元ポップスターだったという事実のために。ニーナは一度に有名なバレリーナだった母親に苦しんでして、美馬を（パーフェクトブルー）ニーナはしないようにストレス、セクシュアリティ、名声のイメージにつきまとわ、幻覚を開始これらの映画は、類似これは助け希望される方法についてブラックスワンインチ私は"上に行く可能性が

Darren, how did The Red Shoes influence you and your choices in making this film?

ARONOFSKY: I had heard of The Red Shoes, but I didn’t see it. And then, Scorsese did the restoration a few years ago and I was like, “You know what? I better go and see it.” It’s a masterpiece. It’s an unbelievable film. And I saw that there were similarities in the story, but I think that’s because we both went back to ballet and pulled from ballet for the different characters and stuff, so we ended up in similar places. But, I wasn’t really influenced by it. I really didn’t ever try to be influenced by it because it’s such a masterpiece. The dance sequences were so ahead of their time. I just kept it in the back of my head. It was a long time ago.

The whole cinema verite, handheld approach to The Wrestler was a big risk to bring over into this ballet film because I had never seen a suspenseful film that had this handheld camera and I didn’t know if it would work.

We took the fairy tale and the ballet of Swan Lake and translated all of those characters into characters in our movie reality. It’s really just a retelling of “Swan Lake."

he's made something that is uniquely his,

At times, Darren Aronofsky appears to borrow from Satoshi Kon’s Perfect Blue. Both films have like elements and a desire for perfection, all done with a certain air. Even their protagonist are linked by name (Mima and Nina) and profession (pop star and ballerina).

LA DANSE was a big inspiration for us.

this idea that you wake up one day, and someone is pushing out everything that makes you you, and I guess in this world of identity theft [laughs] people can relate to it somewhat,

That was kind of what I took from Dostoyevsky's "The Double,"

Capone: Perhaps more than any of your other films, critics seem to be stepping over themselves to compare BLACK SWAN to other films and other filmmakers, and I think that kind of short changes the work to be honest.

DA: Why do you think they are doing it?

Capone: Maybe when somebody sees something this wholly original, they want to make a connection to something familiar in the mind of the readers, just so they have some idea of what they're in for.

The most common comparisons have been with filmmakers like Cronenberg and Argento--

I mean it’s hard to say, because I think I’m the product of all of the movies and all of the music and all of the art I’ve seen over a lifetime, I think.

That’s where you get ideas from, just seeing other people’s work and then it goes into your brain and shuffles it up, and you put your own personality on it.

Right now, independent film is really tough

Parallels to Perfect Blue
Beautiful young woman becomes outshined by competition that may or may not be real, becomes obsessively jealous and violent, hallucinations take over the world of the film, drawing the audience into the protagonist's madness. The estate of Satoshi Kon, rest his soul, should be getting royalties.

Aronofsky owes a debt to Satoshi Kon's 1998 anime "Perfect Blue,"

There’s a little Satoshi Kon on display, a little Dario Argento, some Dardanelle brothers, and a whole mess of early Polanski and Michael Powell & Emeric Pressburger rounding things out—in fact, it would not be incorrect to call Black Swan the perfect fusion between Polanski’s Repulsion and Powell and Pressburger’s The Red Shoes.

A mi-chemin entre Les chaussons rouges (Michael Powell, 1948) et Perfect Blue (Satoshi Kon, 1998), Black Swan se présente comme le pendant féminin de The Wrestler.

If you read the narrative in this way, seeing madness as the catalyst for a butterfly-like personal breakthrough, it comes to resemble another classic tale of creative ambition gone bad, told in Satoshi Kon's anime masterpiece Perfect Blue. That film, though dissociation was its organizing principle, turned out to be a coming-of-age story of Mima, its female protagonist, as she moved away from performing crowd-friendly girl-pop and into the adult world of acting and sensationalism. If you read Black Swan metaphorically, it's close kin to this animated cousin. There are a number of character parallels, as well: Nina's cloying mother has a clear equal in the over-protective casting agent in Perfect Blue, and Aaronofsky's Beth Macintyre, played by Winona Rider, plays a parallel part to the murderous fanboy who stalks Mima in order to prevent her from destroying her own innocence.

Shutter Island Par. $128,012,934 2/19/10
The Wrestler FoxS $26,238,243 12/17/08
1408 MGM/W $71,985,628 6/22/07
The Number 23 NL $35,193,167 2/23/07
The Fountain WB $10,144,010 11/22/06
Closer Sony $33,987,757 12/3/04
Mulholland Drive Uni. $7,220,243 10/8/01
Requiem for a Dreamp Art. $3,635,482 10/6/00
What Lies Beneath DW $155,464,351 7/21/00
Perfect Blue Palm $112,536 8/20/99
Pi Art. $3,221,152 7/10/98
Showgirls MGM $20,350,754 9/22/95
The Shining WB $44,017,374 5/23/80

The temptation to compare Black Swan to the Red Shoes is an obvious one, but I think Swan is more of a twin with the late Satoshi Kon’s ingenious animated giallo Perfect Blue. Like Perfect Blue, Black Swan is not just a film about backstage machinations in theater and art, but a film about identity and how the image of something we aspire to become can destroy us utterly. How being ‘the ideal’ can be a living nightmare, both in maintaining the illusion of that ideal and being put on that pedestal by others. It is about how being on this pedestal, being this ideal, isolates and destroys women and can erode away at their sense of reality and their connections to everything and everyone around them. Both Perfect Blue and Black Swan are unique in how they deal with this powerful commentary on objectification and identity. The biggest difference between them is that one is set in the cut-throat world of Ballet with Nina, and the other is set in the cut-throat world of Japanese Idol celebrity with Perfect Blue’s Mima.

On pense au Polanski de Répulsion et Le Locataire pour la schizophrénie ambiante ou à Satoshi Kon (que Aronofski citait déjà dans une scène de Requiem For a Dream reprise de Perfect Blue où Jennifer Connely hurle en silence dans l’eau de sa baignoire) pour la perte de repère avec la réalité.

Ces thématiques universelles sont au service d'une intrigue menée tambour battant qui multiplie rapidement les fausses pistes, payant des hommages aux opus de Michael Haneke («La pianiste»), Krzysztof Kieslowski («La double vie de Véronique») et Satoshi Kon (principalement «Perfect Blue»).

I got a chance to watch Darren Aronofsky’s latest film “Black Swan” and the entire time as I sat in the theatre absorbing the movie I couldn’t help but notice (in the back of my mind of course) to how similar (much to similar) Black Swan reminded me of Satoshi Kon’s (May he rest in peace ) film “Perfect Blue”.

After I made this connection (which If I remember correctly is not the first time that Aronofsky has taken a scene from Perfect Blue) because If I remember correctly in Aronofsky film “Requiem For A Dream” he used a scene in its exact form from Perfect Blue. The scene at hand is in Perfect Blue when Mima is in the bath tub and yells while underneath the water which was used frame per frame in Aronofsky “Requiem For A Dream”.

After finishing up all of my connection between Black Swan and Perfect Blue it was completely clear in every way that Perfect Blue had a very heavy influence in Aronofsky “Black Swan” but then again I had the exact same feeling while watching “Inception”.

When I saw Inception I was offended in every way possible because everyone on this planet called earth praised Inception for being a original masterpiece when in reality it just turned out to be a blatant rip off of Satoshi Kons “Paprika”.

The reason that I have decided to make this post is the fact that both Aronofsky and Nolan have not paid any form of homage to the late director who has heavily influenced if not should be credited for both of their most prominent works and I find that completely unfair to Kon.

Not to mention the praise that both directors get disgust me at the fact that neither one ever shows respect for the late director (especially after his death one would think they would give credit and respect to the late director) and even though Aronofsky loves to state how much he enjoys “Perfect Blue” even going as far as to purchase the rights to the film he never gave respect nor gave its proper credit for the influence that Perfect Blue has had on his career and Nolan is just a blatant rip off and should be forced to openly state that Paprika influenced the entirety of Inception(which to be honest is a blatant rip off).

All I want is for the american film industry to show respect and credit their influences because they think that Anime holds no validity nor craft but I can assure you all these little movies we all enjoy are influenced if not homage’s or blatant rip offs to the work of Satoshi Kon especially in the case of Nolan and Aronofsky.

Seems to me like 2010 has been the year to rip off Satoshi Kon which is extremely saddening as this was the year of his death which may have been bad timing but I feel it only decent for both directors to show respect to the man that influenced both of their careers so heavily.

Discretion: Satoshi Kon is flat out my favorite director amongst Miyazaki, Coppola and Anderson and i am in no way “hating” on Aronofsky (He’s a director that I heavily appreciate and RFAD is one of my favorite movies and Black Swan was the best thing I’ve seen all year) all i am saying it is in poor taste for Aronofsky and Nolan to discredit someone who has had such a strong effect on both of their careers.

These universal themes are serving a brisk plot, which quickly multiplies the wrong tracks, paying homage to the album by Michael Haneke (“The Pianist”), Krzysztof Kieslowski (“The Double Life of Veronique”) and Satoshi Kon ( mainly “Perfect Blue”).

Review review: Black Swan
(As ever, beware - heavy spoilers lie ahead.)...Bullshit, you obsequious hack. I know with unremitting precision what hit me, and I knew almost as soon as the movie started. What hit me was Satoshi Kon's classic psychological thriller Perfect Blue - and I'm not the only one who thinks so.

"...now that we have Black Swan, we no longer need a live action remake of Perfect Blue."
As much as I credit Meredith Borders for her astuteness in noticing that the two movies are more or less actually the same movie, she (perhaps doing her best Peter Travers impersonation) is dead wrong about almost everything in her review. While Travers should be roundly chastised for failing to even mention the wholly obvious influence of Kon's work, Borders's response is hardly better. "This isn’t really a debate of whether Perfect Blue is a direct inspiration for Black Swan," she says. "Aronofsky has already categorically denied that claim, and who am I to argue?" Yeah, Meredith - and Vanilla Ice was right about how the track for "Ice Ice Baby" was totally different than the hook from "Under Pressure." If any of you readers can watch both movies without feeling that the earlier was a heavy influence on the later, I'll be very impressed. For my part, my first time watching Black Swan felt like it was my second time watching it, and that sure as hell isn't because I developed ESP during the trailers.

Here, though, is the bigger problem with Aronofsky's rendering of Perfect Blue: considered as a whole movie, it makes almost no sense. Rather than having "take[n] the best parts of Perfect Blue and turn[ed] them into something more," as Borders alleges, Aronofsky simply added more to the best parts of the anime. Take the use of ballet as a central theme, for example: the events in Black Swan are structured to mirror both the plot and musical progression of Swan Lake, sure, but so what? It would be a neat trick, except (a) any basic modern reinterpretation of Swan Lake would've accomplished the exact same thing and (b) it ruins the plot twists by beating you over the head with foreshadowing (unless, of course, you're as dim as Peter Travers is). Similarly, Aronofsky's characters are more human than Kon's but in a way that detracts from rather than adds to the overall experience; the gestalt here is working in the wrong direction...The problem with this is that, on Black Swan's own terms, the black swan persona is only a manifestation of psychological distress (and not, as in Perfect Blue, another actual person)...Aronofsky succeeds in getting a few jump-scares out of the audience and does manage to impress on us both the beauty and minor lunacy of ballet, but Perfect Blue succeeds because it doesn't compromise its atmosphere or break its concentration for anything. Black Swan, in stark contrast, simply layers scares on top of its basic structure like icing on a cake. That said, even cake wrecks can taste good; go see Black Swan for the dancing and the music - in short, for the ballet - but know that this is a movie that's been done, and done better, already.

I was gonna see Harry Potter. I was. But my timing just wasn’t right, so I went to see Black Swan instead. Everything I had seen suggested that this was the ultimate conclusion of what began as Aronofsky’s desire to remake Satoshi Kon’s Perfect Blue. I still believe that this film may be the one he ultimately decided to make instead of a direct remake. Several of Kon’s elements are there: the imaginary doppelganger, the obsessed mother figure, the lecherous business that calls for her to lose her innocence. But it wasn’t anywhere near as satisfying as Perfect Blue, for reasons of artistic sensibility, storytelling, and philosophy....

Then we have some storytelling problems. My biggest complaint is with the Mother. During the rising action, we see that the Mother is obsessive, overbearing, and oppressive of Natalie Portman. And the Mother used to be a dancer before giving birth to Portman. The character has a clear parallel in Perfect Blue....Then there is a problem of philosophy. I won’t give away the ending of Perfect Blue, but suffice to say, that film got the philosophy right. Black Swan got it wrong. Natalie Portman sees a doppelganger dressed in black. This is of course in her imagination. Believe me, I have no trouble with the psychological games. I’ve been over hazy, difficult-to-decipher ground a hundred times with Perfect Blue. I know that Natalie Portman scratches her shoulder blade unconsciously. I know that when the word “whore” appeared on the bathroom mirror in red lipstick, she unconsciously wrote it there herself. The problem is that Aronofsky tried to make the story mirror Swan Lake too closely. His characters simply aren’t as archetypal as the ones in the ballet, so the good/evil dichotomy feels forced. It’s like he tried to have it both ways — both Swan Lake and Perfect Blue — and it failed. What Aronofsky should have done was go with Perfect Blue‘s philosophy.

Salut à tous! Ca fait bien longtemps que j'avais pas posté...

J'ai eu la chance de voir en avant première le film "Black Swan" de Darren Aronofsky (le réalisateur de Pi, Requiem for a dream, The Fountain, et The Wrestler). Le film sortira en février en France je crois.

Je pense que beaucoup d'entre vous savent déjà qu'Aronovsky aimait beaucoup le travail de Satoshi Kon. Il est assez dur de trouver des infos sur les sites des magazines de cinéma professionnels, mais il semblerait qu'il avait acquis les droits de Perfect blue en 1998, pour utiliser une séquence dans "Requiem for a dream" (quand l'héroïne crie sous l'eau dans sa baignoire, en effet les plans sont identiques). A l'époque, d'après des articles lus, Aronovsky parlait d'essayer d'adapter "Perfect Blue" en film.
Puis silence radio pendant plus de 10 ans.
Et voici "Black Swan", un thriller psychologique sur le monde de la danse, son stress, son excellence, ses rivalités. Le film est excellent. Bourré de trouvailles, stressant, beau, dérangeant... Un très bon film donc, et on en attendait pas moins de Darren Aronofsky.
Mais le film fait furieusement penser à "Perfect Blue" sur de nombreux points. La schizophrénie de l'héroine, son milieu artistique exigeant, l'impresario qui la couve, les visions de double, etc... Certaines scènes sont directement issues de "Perfect Blue", comme la scène du rouge à lèvre sur le miroir, ou les plans avec le double du miroir, etc...
Je me disais, excellent, c'est un hommage au film de Satoshi Kon, il va le marquer quelquepart. Mais au début ou à la fin du film, je ne vois rien, pas de remerciement, pas de mention, rien.
Ca tombe bien, Darren Aronovsky est dans la salle de cinéma et répond aux questions des spectateurs et journaliste. Je lève le bras, mais je me dis bien que quelqu'un d'autre va poser la question. Pas de chance, on ne me retient pas. Les autres parlent de Nathalie Portman nue, de Robocop, de Wolferine... Et la session se finit. Aucune référence à Perfect blue. Même chose durant la session de question suivante, dans le cinema MK2 où sont des amis à moi. Aucune référence à Satoshi Kon.

Alors voila, je me questionne. Alors qu'il aurait pu (du?) lui rendre hommage, sachant que Satoshi Kon nous a quitté prématurément cette année, aucune mention d'un quelconque rapport entre Black Swan et Perfect Blue. D'ailleurs aucune réaction de Aronovsky à la mort de Satoshi Kon. Seuls les journalistes qui dressent un parallèle.
J'ai trouvé cet article de "Palmarès Magazine" où pour le journaliste, il est évident que "Black Swan" est un hommage à Satoshi Kon.
Étrangement aucun article de journal de cinéma très connu ne parle du rapport entre Perfect Blue et Black Swan. Pourquoi? Je ne sais pas... Peut-être Darren Aronovsky pense que "Perfect Blue" n'a été qu'une influence. Et que dans le milieu légal du cinéma hollywoodien, mieux vaut ne pas marquer trop de choses, pour éviter de donner de l'argent à droite à gauche. De toute façon, il a déjà les droits du film...

Pour ceux qui se demandent, non, Black Swan n'est pas un remake de Perfect Blue. Les films sont comme 2 contes de pays différents, partis de la même légende. Des trames en commun, des situations semblables, voire des scènes identiques, mais un milieu différent, un message différent, une fin différente, une manière de filmer très différente. J'ai aimé les deux films. Mais l'année de la mort du réalisateur Satoshi Kon, j'aurais vraiment aimer que Darren Aronovsky lui fasse un hommage officiel.

Black Swan is a great subdued thriller from Aronofsky, one which he describes as a companion piece to his last movie, The Wrestler, and each could serve as two sides to the same coin. Besides that and the aforementioned comparison to Fight Club, I noticed some thematic similarities with Thirteen, specifically in Nina’s loss of control in her attempts to grow up, but most overwhelmingly this movie greatly reminded me of Perfect Blue, a film that Aronofsky is notably a fan of (he purchased remake rights to recreate on scene exactly in his movie Requiem for a Dream). Like Blue, Swan features a protagonist in the entertainment industry who follows her ambition with grave mental and emotional cost, and both movies play games with the viewer in their deliberate refusal to distinguish reality from fiction. The influence of Blue is felt in this film from start to finish, and with pleasingly excruciating outcomes.

You will like this movie if – You like movies that don’t make sense and are purposely understated AND you liked at least two of these movies: Fight Club, Thirteen, Perfect Blue, The Wrestler

The filmmaking is just as good as it gets here. Each film has a style all its own that seems to have beaten both Darren Aronofsky and Christopher Nolan to the punch. They may or may not have seen Kon’s work, but Perfect Blue does the Red Shoes-esque dance sequence shooting, and the spinning hallway sequence, as good as it was in Inception, is better (and five years ago) in Paprika. The only live-action film that comes to mind as a valid comparison to Kon’s “shooting style” and explosive kinetic energy is Shinya Tsukamoto’s Tetsuo: The Iron Man.

I bought PERFECT BLUE when it first hit US shelves on VHS in 2000 when i was in the tenth grade and have watched it over and over again many times. It is one of my favorite movies. To deny it's inspiration on BLACK SWAN is like a slap in the face to Satoshi Kon, really. If someone was to man up and do a live-action remake of BLUE (aimed at an American audience, obviously, as we don't really have the same "idol" scene here in the west as they do in Japan) people would cry "rip-off". The two films are THAT similar. It can't be pure coincidence, either, that the female leads of both films have nearly the exact same friggin' names, and then try and say they have nothing to do with each other.

PS : for the people who liked the film and are ready for more,
I can recommend ‘Perfect Blue’.
It’s not for the faint of heart, but this is a real masterpiece

It’s a japanese animated movie.

Aronofsky bought the rights of this japanese picture to remake a
scene in ‘Requiem for a dream’.

The main themes of ‘Perfect Blue’ are : double, confusion,
show business, overprotective/ambiguous characters,
madness (obviously), violence and rape (no doubt about it, this time).
Suprise, eh ?

I’m sure this movie was a great influence on ‘Black Swan’. We’ll see
if the movie critics are able to pick it up.

The movie was directed by Satoshi Kon, who died months ago.

One more thing, as many japanese production, ‘Perfect Blue’ begins
slowly, so bear with it. And don’t get confused by the introduction,
it’s definitively for mature audiences.

(Like Christopher Nolan on Inception, he's another live action director overshadowed by animator Satoshi Kon (R.I.P., 1963-2010):In terms of vigorous mindfucking, Kon's Perfect Blue is to Requiem for a Dream what Paprika is to Inception).

Being able to lose yourself in Nina’s unstable mind would theoretically be the real prize here. Unfortunately, we can’t. I really wish someone had taken the time to show Aronofsky Satoshi Kon’s 1997 psychological thriller Perfect Blue, a superior film to which I couldn’t help but compare Black Swan. If you’ve seen it, you know why. Of course, Kon’s film is animated, and the medium lends itself more naturally to manipulating an audience’s perception of reality, since every single line and color can be defined by the filmmaker. However, Perfect Blue proves far superior to Black Swan in creating a real sense of fear, and danger, though the source is never clearly identifiable until the end...

...People of the world, my recommendation is to skip Black Swan. It is a boring film focused upon a completely uninteresting character. If you want to see the genre done right, I suggest Satoshi Kon’s Perfect Blue, instead. And yes, I know it’s a cartoon, but trust me.

For the younger generation of Japanese animators, weaned on video games and manga comics, anime is a fitting complement to stories about technology and information overload. Satoshi Kon's "Paprika" was a trippy predecessor to "Inception" (at a fraction of the budget), and now Mamoru Hosoda's "Summer Wars" adds some needed color to the virtual-world theme in movies like "Tron."

Black Swan also shares a lot of similarities with the anime film Perfect Blue, which Aronofsky purchased the rights to so that he could recreate scenes from it in his own films, and the claustrophobic, kinetic cinematography of Japanese filmmaker Shinya Tsukamoto, whom Aronofsky has cited as a huge influence.

Remake for a ballet ?
Mais il serait déplacé de voir Black Swan comme un faux remake de Perfect Blue. Au-delà de toutes les similitudes, la question de l’efficience, en ce sens la direction du spectateur, les sépare inéluctablement. Le mystère et sa résolution n’occupent pas une place aussi prépondérante que dans l’œuvre de Satoshi Kon. Aronofsky choisit de diminuer la part intellectuelle de son film afin d’augmenter la part émotionnelle chez son audience, construisant son long-métrage comme un rêve torturé. Dès lors, ses choix de mise en scène tendent à se rapprocher de l’influence la plus logique : celle du Lac des cygnes de Piotr Ilitch Tchaïkovski.

Perfect Blue (Satoshi Kon) + Repulsion (Roman Polansky) =“Black Swan” - Darren Aronofsky - 2010

Another clear influence is Satoshi Kon's excellent anime Perfect Blue, for which Aronofsky already owns the rights, having replicated a scene for Requiem For A Dream shot for shot. There are many parallels between it and Black Swan, from the overbearing mother figure, to the idea of negative reflections and doppelgangers. It's interesting to note that originally Black Swan was going to set around a theatre production (which would have been more similar to Perfect Blue) rather than a ballet, indeed, it's only the ballet setting and the Swan Lake elements of the story that prevent Black Swan from being a near direct remake of Satoshi Kon's film, albeit on a much grander scale.

being an oscar voter, i certainly did not vote to any of the “live-action Satoshi Kon’s wannabes” for direction.
sadly, the other one got a nomination. Aronofsky, i’m looking at you!
why they don’t just remake Paprika( inception) and Perfect blue(black swan) instead?

Satoshi Kon is the most absurd omission in recent years considering how one of the most hyped films at the gala wouldn't have existed if it wasn't for him.